


Home, Home, Home

by PTomlin



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Spoilers, The Stolen Century
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 15:07:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11785707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PTomlin/pseuds/PTomlin
Summary: "For taz requests how about something fluffy with Magnus and Lucretia, the two members of the IPRE crew who have strong feelings about tea, experiencing a particularly delicious blend together on a new Plane?"Magnus and Lucretia drink tea, cuddle, and talk about the future





	Home, Home, Home

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from Ingrid Michaelson's song, Are We There Yet

The world is white. 

Winter had come to the plane they were currently inhabiting in a three day long stint of massive snowflakes that blotted out the sun and kept the IPRE confined to the Starblaster and the residents of this plane in their homes for the duration, the fear of getting lost in the drifts too great. Not unusual to this world, apparently; they’d been warned ahead of time what to expect, and they’d been prepared for it. But today at last had broken clear and crisp, the first rays of the pre-dawn light sparkling soft over the small valley they rest in presently. 

Magnus sits on the edge of the deck of the Starblaster, watching the world sleep still, legs swinging out into the open sky, past the invisible barrier that keeps in the warmth. He’s got his boots on, a thick pair of pants tucked into the laces just below his knees, but he’s still in the soft red shirt he’s also worn for the last three days, the sleeves slightly fraying at the wrists now from the years he’s had it. Like he’d started getting dressed to go out and had maybe thought better of it. 

Lucretia stops for a moment at the top of the stairs to watch him, two identical mugs of tea held close to her body. She wonders what he’s thinking. Idly, though. She’s still in her pajamas, not quite awake enough yet for grand musings. 

He hears her when she starts to walk to him, bare footed and all, the world is so still. His smile is fond and content when he looks up at her, and hers in return is just as so. 

“Here,” she says, holding one of the steaming mugs in his direction, fingers splayed around the rim. His smile turns quizzical for half a second, and she’s done this what must be a thousand times now, this exact thing, bringing him a drink or a snack just because she wanted one and thought he might too, wanted someone to share with, but something must show in her face, this time. Maybe he is able to feel her anticipation just by how she’s standing, gods, but they know each other so well by now. Still. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move. She waits for him to take it. 

He brings both of his hands up, always so large and rough despite his perpetual youth, and the mug disappears between them. He watches the surface of the liquid as he draws back, careful not to slosh it’s contents, and then glances back at her. He’s still looking at her as he brings the cup to his lips to take a sip. He only stops looking at her when his eyes widen, brows rising in surprise.

“Holy shit, what is that?”

“Tea?” she suggests, trying for innocuous, but the smile is too wide on her face. She’s delighted that he likes it. “Or whatever passes for the equivalent on this plane. We’ve been working on the blend for weeks now.” She sits down next to him, settling her soft blue robe around herself and leaning into his shoulder. He shifts his mug to one hand, leaning into her in turn. 

“We?” he asks, and takes another sip.

“Taako and I,” she says.

They’d tried hundreds of combinations, balancing ingredients, experimenting with temperatures and times for steeping, different sweeteners and additives, searching for that place of perfection, a custom creation that Magnus would truly appreciate. They’d used up every mug in the Starblaster’s cupboards several times over, and she’d kept scrupulous notes on their progress. 

She appreciates cycles like this, cycles where the get the Light early, and the world is kind, and they have time to live the more normal side of life. The side where she can make tea for someone she loves, just because she wants to. 

“We thought we’d surprise you,” she says.

“Well, consider me surprised,” he says, enthusiastic and wonderfully genuine in the way that only Magnus Burnsides can be, the way he always is. “Really, Creesh, this is fantastic, thank you.”

“I’m glad you like it,” she says. “I’ll let Taako know too. We can stock up on the ingredients so it will last you a few cycles, huh? Or maybe,” she continues, thinking aloud, “Maybe Merle can find a way to grow what we need on the ship, then we’d never run out, would we.”

He hums at her, pleased, and his sideburns tickle her ear as he leans his head against hers. “What would I do without you,” he says, and it’s a little teasing but also very real. 

They lapse into silence, drinking their tea, watching the sun rise over the snow-covered peaks in the distance, dragging long paths of light over snow-covered trees and the pointed roofs of snow-covered houses. Smoke starts to rise from a chimney, and then another, and another, as the people of this plane begin to rise themselves and stoke their fires for warmth and breakfast.

“What are you thinking about?” she asks him now, warm tea in her belly, curiosity at last outweighing the cold and the sleep in her bones. She sets her mug down and shifts against him, rolls her head back so she can watch him watching the world.

He laughs a little, more breath than sound, and she gets the sense that he is very careful not to look at her when he says, “Just, uh… Just imagining what we’ll do, when all of this is over.”

Her heart stutters in her chest, because they’ve all talked about after, with anger and sadness and longing, hope and despair and determination, with inebriated bravado and quiet earnest certainty. And she’s trying to figure out what to say now, in this moment that suddenly feels terribly vulnerable, when he beats her to it.

“I think I’ll build us a house.” He says it a little loud, a little forceful, and for Magnus Burnsides fifty years ago, that would have been simply how he was, all brashness, all rushing in, but this Magnus Burnsides has learned something of stillness, and so she understands he’s decided to save them both the burden of sadness on this bright, quiet morning. 

“You have gotten very good at ducks,” she says, completely straight-faced. “Do the same basic principles translate to houses?”

He laughs, and it’s warm and it’s what she wanted. “Probably, I don’t know.” He looks at her, finally, and there’s still a wistfulness to the turn of his mouth, but his eyes are clear. “I figure Taako can just transmute whatever I get wrong, right?”

“We’ll need a large kitchen,” she says seriously.

“And a big tank for Fisher,” he adds. “And a library for you, just like, books everywhere.”

“With ladders?” she asks, twisting so she can throw an arm across him, dancing her fingers over the softness of that red shirt, his belly. 

He nods, draping one of his arms around her shoulder. “Oh, definitely.”

“Seven bedrooms?”

“Hmmm,” he says, making an exaggerated show of thinking it over. “Well I figure Lup and Barry will want to share, but if we do seven maybe one can be a closet for the twins.”

“We’ll get all sorts of brand new lab equipment for Barry and Lup.”

“A greenhouse for Merle. A workshop for Cap’nport.”

“More than one bathroom.” 

“Oh gods, yeah, I dream at night about multiple bathrooms,” he says. “Showers I can stand up in, tubs as far as the eye can see.”

She’s giggling into this chest now. “No strange plant life growing in the corners!” she says. “Counter space not covered in cosmetics!”

“And like twelve dogs,” he says. 

“Just twelve?”

“To start,” he says. “And we’ll have tea together, just like this, every morning.” He reaches out, traces the line of her face from brow to chin, and her heart hurts with the tenderness of the gesture, the strength of his gaze. She closes her eyes, cements the moment in her memory, for all those times she will need that strength in the days, months, years to come. 

“We’re going to get there, Magnus,” she says. She says it like a promise, she means it like a promise. She doesn’t open her eyes. “We’re going to get there and we’re going to be so, so happy.” 

“I know,” he tells her. “I know.”


End file.
